F1’s worst teammates

Want to take up a career as a F1 driver? These are the guys to steer clear of

Michael Schumacher Arguably the greatest champion this sport has ever seen and certainly the most successful, for statistics seldom lie. Schumacher was insanely driven to be the best driver of his era and he certainly achieved the distinction winning seven world titles. But the journey saw him rubbing many people the wrong way, and gave ample reasons for neutral fans to dislike him. Perhaps his teammates bore the biggest brunt of his passion to drive and that ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality.

In 1999, an incident at Silverstone saw Schumacher drive straight into a tyre barrier, bringing an end to his championship dreams, but Ferrari team-mate Eddie Irvine was still in the title hunt and once recovered, Schumacher was expected to support his cause. Yet he refused to do so, as he was hell bent on being the one to end Ferrari’s world title draught. He had to be coaxed by the marquee chief Luca di Montezemolo to return to racing that season. Even so, Irvine didn’t win.

Schumacher eventually brought Ferrari their first titles in 21 years and his run of domination began. His teammate during that time, Rubens Barrichello, was a designated number two driver who was never given any priority. The most infamous example: The 2002 Austrian GP where he was vociferously asked (read threatened!) to let Schumacher pass him for victory, despite the German enjoying a comfortable lead in the drivers’ championship. Even on his return to F1 in 2010 with Mercedes, after a three-year hiatus, he demanded Nico Rosberg be given an even car number. The reason: Michael always had number one at Ferrari, so he wanted an odd number on his chassis.

Ayrton Senna If Michael Schumacher is the greatest champion F1 has seen, then surely Ayrton Senna is the greatest driver. But both Schumacher and Senna shared a maniacal drive to win. This meant Senna pushed his teammates’ endurance limits – most notably Alain Prost. The two were teammates at McLaren in 1988 and 1989. It was the most volatile drivers’ pairing ever in the history of Formula One.

Things were hunky dory in 1988 when Senna won his first title ahead of Prost. But the intra-team rivalry came out in the open the next season as the two tried to outdo each other. Prost claimed that they had a pre-race agreement at Imola but Senna overtook him and won the race. The Frenchman refused to speak with him after that. When he won at Monaco, Prost chose to celebrate with Ferrari fans instead of his team McLaren, almost jibing at Senna. Things boiled over at Suzuka (Japanese GP) where the two drivers clashed and Prost was forced to retire. Senna was disqualified and his team-mate became champion.

Fernando Alonso In 2007, two-time world champion Fernando Alonso joined McLaren, partnering with their prodigious talent Lewis Hamilton. The

wo blew away the opposition, competing for the championship among themselves as also with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. Their off-track friendship came to a hasty end when Alonso blocked Lewis during the Hungarian GP. Later, he complained to the FIA against McLaren in the Spygate scandal, because he did not enjoy number one status in the team. He was booted out at the end of the year.

But this demand for number one isn’t something that started at McLaren. Prior to that, at Renault, Alonso was always ahead of Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella, who were never allowed to challenge him. Then came Nelson Piquet Junior who allegedly crashed his car at the 2008 Singapore GP to help his Spanish teammate. If this wasn’t prominent enough, after Alonso moved to Ferrari in 2010, he became the certified prima-dona ahead of Felipe Massa. In the German GP that year, Massa was asked to make way for Alonso, like Barichello did for Schumacher. The message ‘Felipe, Fernando is faster than you!’ became (in)famous almost instantly.

Nelson Piquet While his son did Alonso a huge favour – crashing his car and allowing him to win – Nelson Piquet wasn’t one to cower down to anyone. He had won two championships, in 1981 and 1983, but they were easy goings as compared to his 1987 title. Driving for Williams, his rivalry with Nigel Mansell heated up very quickly. To say that they did not see eye to eye would be an understatement. While Mansell did his talking on the track, a British driver favoured by a British team, Piquet did not throw in the towel and used other means to fight back. Honda were powering Williams at that time and the engine-supplier openly supported him against Mansell, effectively creating a rift within the garage. Piquet did manage to get a consistent points-scoring win, outclassing Mansell for the championship as his team-mate just couldn’t keep up with the ongoing mental warfare.

(Chetan Narula is the author of History of Formula One: The Circus comes to India.)